Tuesday, July 7, 2015

The Liability

Charlie rolled up a character with every attribute under 10 and that seemed kinda special... an anti-warrior wizard perhaps.

He is a dwarf so his STR became 18 but even so he just seemed like he ought not to be written off without a chance of (vain)glory.

He was soon referred to as a liability and that got me thinking: what if he was a liability to others?

I needed some rules, pronto!

This is what I ran with -

he might affect anyone he came into direct contact with if:

He failed a L1 SR on LK and

The person encounter failed a L1 LK SR

I needed more!

I decided he could never increase his LK and he would only ever get to add 1 for level, no matter how high he rose (rising at all seemed unlikely)

He could only affect a particular person once per day unless he/she really got actively involved with the 'Liability'

He affected creatures with no less than horse-like intelligence

To affect less intelligent creatures required a critical fumble on their part

The dwarf was christened 'Broadless' for a reason that was clear to Charlie but which escaped me. I gave him a bonus talent for playing the lyre, just for the sake of the pun, but he needed to make a L1 SR on CHR otherwise he leaked sweat from his armpits copiously and odiously. (The players soon came up with the idea - being considerably younger than me, of collecting his armpit sweat, straining it through his socks and seeing what happened; an improbable SR on WIZ caused a female kobold - Nipsy- to become absolutely smitten with Broadless, this leading to an extended and entirely untenable misadventure).

Broadless soon wanted to know if he could focus his liability (dis)ability and I gave him that in the interests of madcap gaming. So, if he MADE a SR on LK he increased the target's LK SR level i.e. if he made a L2 SR on his focus talent (based on LK) at, say, L2 then the target's LK SR would need to be at L3 to avoid the liability affect - which I had to quickly gauge (Broadless still had to fail at L1 LK after he made a focus SR).

The adventure spiralled on to Castle Lostreld, scene of my "Poisoned Chalice" solo, and I found ti expedient to have Lord Shivorq's Vizier-Wizard, Nethalkan, fashion a rainbow pendant that protected against the liability effect - well, Nethalkan is L13 so fair play).

Enough already! Now I shall go back to reading Roy 'the Boy' Thomas' account of how Marvel acquired the rights to Conan as I sit drinking a Blue Moon beer in Far-Eastern California with a 100 degree evening prowling outside and Death Valley beckoning me on to ever hotter extremes tomorrow as I wend my way Phoenix-wards, born aloft on the wings of the news of the birth of dT&T.